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2007-02-13 Syria-Lebanon-Iran

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Posted by Steve 2007-02-13 12:20|| || Front Page|| [6 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Somebody remind me why we tolerate Baby Assad.

Posted by anymouse">anymouse 2007-02-13 13:32|| 2007-02-13 13:32|| Front Page Top

#2 The people who make this sort of thing go on and on are the Lebanese who are fence sitters, opposed to Syrian meddling, but willing to live with it as long as their immediate family / fortune are not at stake. In the end, they are silent, passive collaborators...

Posted by M. Murcek">M. Murcek 2007-02-13 13:34|| 2007-02-13 13:34|| Front Page Top

#3 We tolerate Assad because he keeps a lid on things in his neck of the woods. Yes, he's a pain in the neck when it comes to the Lebanese, almost as much a pain in the neck as the Lebanese themselves, who couldn't agree on a paint color if there were only 1 color available.

Posted by Perfesser 2007-02-13 13:41|| 2007-02-13 13:41|| Front Page Top

#4 a: Somebody remind me why we tolerate Baby Assad.

We tolerate him because changing foreign governments isn't as easy as Hollywood movies make it out to be. The regime changes that did not involve US invasions were going to happen anyway - all Uncle Sam did was line the pockets of the winners.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2007-02-13 16:53|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2007-02-13 16:53|| Front Page Top

#5 Because in real life, the circumstances for a relatively bloodless coup are few and far between. One of the successes was the 1953 riots/coup that overthrew the socialist Prime Minister of Iran and installed the Shah : it involved a very smart CIA agent, a very large suitcase of cash, and several very large rent-a-mobs in the local marketplace in Tehran. And all that the riots/protests were supposed to do was put pressure on the PM; however, once the on-the-ground man saw how well they were going, he kept the money flowing and viola, the Shah was suddenly in power as the "choice of the people".

Posted by Shieldwolf 2007-02-13 18:10|| 2007-02-13 18:10|| Front Page Top

#6 Otherwise, you get stuck in a country like Bosnia, Haiti, Kosovo, or Iraq for 10-15 years rebuilding the damned place. And if you think the Dems have gone ape shit over Iraq, what do you think they would do about Syria? Lebanon? Somalia? Or Iran? All of those places need to be cleaned up and guarded for 10-15 years, in order for the necessary social changes to take hold; very few countries have the wealth, the means, the military forces, and above all the patience to do that. And with the whining about Iraq, I am not sure that the US has suffered enough of the horrors of terrorism on its own shores to be generally resolved to keep the military actions going overseas, to keep the terrorists and terrorism over there.

Posted by Shieldwolf 2007-02-13 18:15|| 2007-02-13 18:15|| Front Page Top

#7 SW: One of the successes was the 1953 riots/coup that overthrew the socialist Prime Minister of Iran and installed the Shah

The Shah was head of state throughout all this. He had appointed Mossadegh and dismissed him. It was a coup only in the sense that it involved some violence. A contemporary example would be that of the recent coup in Thailand, where the King of Thailand was involved in the dismissal of the existing administration. The point is that the CIA did not topple Mossadegh and bring the Shah out of an obscure exile to assume the reigns of power. The Shah was a major (if not the major) player from the git-go. More likely than not, the CIA exaggerated its role in the Shah's removal of the usurper Mossadegh. The exaggeration of its role served both the CIA's purposes in demonstrating its supposed competence and effectiveness and the left's purposes in demonstrating America's devilish plots and omnipotence, against which any countermeasures, including mass murder, were acceptable.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2007-02-13 19:35|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2007-02-13 19:35|| Front Page Top

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